President Pressley    

Members of the National Association of Black Journalists elect Condace Pressley as the organization’s fourth woman president.

Members of the National Association of Black Journalists elect Condace Pressley as the organization's fourth woman president. Pressley, assistant program director for Atlanta's WSB-AM, a news/talk station, takes office at a tough time for NABJ, which is struggling to recover from an $800,000 deficit in its $2.5 million budget last year. About half of the losses were in NABJ's stock portfolio, Pressley says. At its August convention in Orlando, the 26-year-old organization created a finance committee, which the board of directors made permanent, a move Pressley calls "a good first step." She's also concerned about declining numbers of African Americans in the nation's newsrooms (see "Losing Ground," June). "In many cases we've figured out how to hire a diverse workforce," says Pressley. "News managers need to be better skilled and trained at managing a diverse workforce." A graduate of the University of Georgia, Pressley, who turns 37 this month, started at WSB as a city hall reporter and anchor in 1986 and was named to her current position, which includes managing daily operations, in 1999.